Author's Note: This chapter contains graphic sexual content and not much else. Seriously. This chapter is basically nothing but porn. I'm sorry, but also, you're welcome.

“In a perfect world, you could fuck people without giving them a piece of your heart. And every glittering kiss and every touch of flesh is another shard of heart you’ll never see again." -Neil Gaiman

73 days sober

Telling Ben about what happened yesterday turns out to be more difficult than I’d expected. I spend most of the morning psyching myself up to verbalize it, and in the end, I settle for, “So, uh, full disclosure? Kinda made out with Travis yesterday.” “Full disclosure? Kinda weird to be revealing this to me in the Barbie aisle of a toy store at three thirty in the morning,” Ben says, not even looking up from the two boxed dolls he’s holding. “Do you think Izzy would rather have a mermaid or a… I mean, I guess it’s a fairy, right? It’s got wings.” “Do the wings come off?” I ask. He nods. “Does the fin?” He shakes his head. I take both dolls from him, put the mermaid back on the shelf, and put the fairy in the cart. “She’s got like three thousand outfits for these things, and you know she’ll be pissed if the doll can’t fit into a dress because of some dumb fin. Seriously, though, do you even care about what I just told you?” His brow creases. “Not really? It’s not like I’m surprised, dude. You guys have been building up to this for months, so I kind of figured you might get back together now that he’s not with Josslyn anymore. Though, if we’re still doing the ‘full disclosure’ thing, I’d like to add that he’s a hypocritical swine for giving me so much shit about dating you during your first year clean, then turning around and doing the exact same thing—” “He’s not,” I interrupt. “We’re not back together. We just… kissed.” “Kissed,” Ben echoes doubtfully. I shrug. “Well, made out. For like, two hours. Whatever, it wasn’t a big deal.” “Don’t be a jackass,” he replies. “Look, you and I sleeping together sometimes? Not a big deal. Travis and Alex hooking up that one time? Not a big deal.” “You and Jamie making mad, passionate love on your living room floor? Was that a big deal?” I ask, and he glares at me. I bounce in place and toss another Barbie into the cart. “Come on, dude, it’s just us. Can we please talk about this now?” He ignores me; I poke him. He darts into the next aisle; I chase him down and run over his foot with the cart. Twice. When he rounds on me like he’s preparing to smack me, I say, “Come on, give me something.” After another minute of scowling, he finally admits in a hushed undertone, “It was embarrassing, okay? Not, you know, while it was happening. But it’s embarrassing now. Before that day, I had never topped anyone, so I know I probably sucked, and it’s not like he’s got any shortage of guys to compare me to. Including you, and I know exactly how good you are.” He pretends not to notice as I preen. “But I just—other than what I’ve done with you, I don’t really have much… I don’t know. Experience? Before we met, I’d only had sex twice. Ever.” That doesn’t get me as hot as having been first would, but we’re definitely in danger of me getting a wildly inappropriate erection in a toy store if he keeps talking about how he was practically untouched before he met me. Luckily, he steers us away from the topic of boning with, “I’m honestly glad that he and Alex are done, not because I want it to happen again, but because I’m kind of hoping that this means I’ll never really have to see him again. At least not for a little while. I don’t want to have to put up with him smirking at me just because he knows I’m as much of a bottom as he always expected me to be.” “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” I say, even though I’m sure of no such thing. Picturing Ben topping anyone is almost impossible, but I doubt that hearing that will make him any happier. I contemplate texting Jamie to see if I can wheedle something a bit more honest than ‘I’d rather get fucked by a lemon zester than ever sleep with him again’ out of him, but I have a sneaking suspicion that taking my phone out right now will get me shoved into a shelf of Hot Wheels. “Would now be a shitty time to mention that he and his new girlfriend are coming into town next week to see me in the play? And that I sort of reserved his tickets at the same time I reserved the ones you and Alex asked me to get, so in a best case scenario, you’re going have Alex and Rachael between you two, and in a worst case scenario, you’re going to be sitting right next to each other?” I get shoved into a shelf of Hot Wheels anyway; Ben should really work on his rage issues. We weave our way through the aisles, hunting down the rest of the items on his mom’s list—there’s an extremely tense moment where some forty-year-old woman tries to actually take the last Apples To Apples out of my hands. I don’t let go of it, and she snaps, “Aren’t you boys a little old for this game?” “There’s no such thing a being ‘a little old’ for Apples to Apples. And aren’t you like three times my age?” I bite back. “If I’m too old for it, you definitely are.” Ben wedges himself between us and tries to steer me back, like he’s worried I’m going to get into a fist-fight with a soccer mom. It’s an irrational fear, because I don’t hit women, and I don’t hit people who don’t deserve… alright, sometimes I hit people who don’t deserve it, and this bitch kind of does deserve it. Still, the don’t-hit-women part stands. Maybe he’s more worried about me initiating a yelling match, which is a much more legitimate possibility, especially since I haven’t had my coffee yet. He wrenches the game out of my hands, drops it in his cart, and says to the woman, “I’m sorry, but I need to get this for my little sister. They might have more in the back?” He yanks on my arm, but I ignore him in favor of continuing, “It says right here on the box—’ages twelve and up.’ That’s me. And up.” “Garen, we’re moving on with our lives now,” Ben tries to sooth me. I let myself be steered away, though I call over my shoulder, “Word association is an important skill, you know. I got a twenty-four hundred on my SATs because of Apples to Apples, and now your idiot children never will, because my a-little-old-for-it ass got the last—” “And we’re officially causing a scene, awesome,” Ben says, ramming the shopping cart into my hip until I’m propelled into the next aisle. My last act is to grab a Candy Land off the shelf and wave it menacingly at the woman—it’s not on the list, but I’m totally going to buy it anyway, Candy Land is the fucking best. Ben just shoots me A Look and says, “A twenty-four hundred on your SATs because of Apples to Apples?” “And Monopoly, probably. For the math,” I say. I wait a beat before adding, “I uh, I really did get a twenty-four hundred on my SATs, though. Don’t look at me like that, and don’t make it a big deal. I just test well. What else is on the list?” I snatch the paper from his hands before he can reply. “Barbies, check. Apples to Apples, check. Game for the Wii—holy shit, when did you guys get a Wii? I want to play—” “I should have just manned up and told the girls there’s no Santa so I could take them shopping instead of you. I bet they’d be more adult about this whole situation.” I scoff. “If you want me to be adult, we can go back to talking about anal sex.” “Or we could not,” he snaps, sending an apologetic glance towards the strangers who are shooting us scandalized looks. He runs over my foot for good measure, but I’m not sure why he bothers, considering I’m wearing steel-toed combat boots. The action seems to sooth his aggression, though, because his voice is more neutral as he asks, “Do you really think that you and Travis hooking up again isn’t a big deal?” “I thought you didn’t want to talk about anal sex,” I say a shade too loudly, in hopes that I can embarrass him into silence. It doesn’t work; he just raises his eyebrows at me. I sigh. “Fine. Perhaps I should have been clearer: I don’t think that us making out—it wasn’t hooking up, making out doesn’t count as hooking up—was a big deal to Travis. To me, it was…” I drag a hand through my hair, wrecking the spikes and not giving a fuck about it. Ben waits for me to finish, even though I don’t want to, and eventually I have to settle for, “It was a big deal to me. Finally getting a chance to do that again, after all this time—after leaving Lakewood, after you two being together, after Dave, and rehab, and Joss. So much has happened in the past year, and kissing him again felt like melting, like all the worst part of me were burning up and disappearing and becoming something so much better. But it wasn’t—that. Not for him. It wasn’t a big deal to him.” Ben is silent as we gather the rest of the items on his mom’s list. Only once we’ve steered the cart to the front of the store, paid with the credit card—except for my Candy Land, which I pay for in the singles I usually use to buy my coffee, just because I’m sort of hoping the cashier will think I’m buying a board game with stripper tips—and begun loading the bags into the trunk of his car does he finally meet my eyes and say, “He loves you, you know. Always has. It’s kind of annoying.” I make a noncommittal noise. It’s not that I want to disagree, per se. And it’s not that Travis himself hasn’t said it enough times for me to be aware of it. But after so many months of not being with him, I have to wonder if it’s really true; I have to question whether he still loves me like I think he did when we were together, or if he just feels some “first love” obligation to me. “It’s sort of weird,” Ben says, shrugging. “You know, being the one who doesn’t ever really get anyone?” I blink at him. “What do you mean?” He gestures to the car, and I scramble into the passenger seat. He takes his time getting in, buckling his seat belt, adjusting the heat until it’s perfectly warm. As he backs out of the space, he continues conversationally, “I’m not in love with Travis anymore—I haven’t been for a while. August, maybe? Definitely by September. We broke up in June, right before you went into rehab, and I didn’t see much of him until you got out again. The distance was good. Did more for me and him than it ever did for the two of you, at any rate. I know he was your first love, but he was mine, too. And I think we all tend to forget that.” I don’t know what to say to that, so I don’t say anything. Fortunately, he seems to be expecting that; he smiles wryly before going on, “I don’t doubt that he loved me back, but I also don’t doubt that he loved you more. For four months, he’d come over, and I’d feel you in the room with us. There was never a moment where you weren’t there, too. It was like having a constant threesome, only without the delicious kinkiness of getting to sleep with a pair of hot-ass stepbrothers at once.” I snort, and his small smile blooms into a full-on grin. “Don’t get too happy about it, dude. Dating you was just as bad. Worse, maybe, because you never even tried to hide that you were still in love with him.” “You wouldn’t have wanted me to,” I say, wondering if I should phrase it as a question instead. “No, I wouldn’t have wanted you to,” he agrees, so I figure I’m safe. “Look, my point is that you guys are… you’re fucking impossible to be around sometimes, because you try to pretend you don’t belong to each other, but nobody else has ever come close to having a chance with either of you. So no matter what line of bullshit he tries to feed you, and no matter what lies you try to convince yourself of, don’t for one second think I’m enough of an idiot to believe that what happened between you two wasn’t just as big of a deal to Travis as it was to you.” Part of me wants to argue, but the rest of me just wants to believe he’s right. I shrug and say, “I guess. Look, can we just—can we not talk about this? Let’s just finish the shopping. What else is on the list?” “The only other place I need to go is the bookstore, and they don’t open until five. Do you want to swing by the Grind so you can get coffee and pretend you’re not flirting with Travis?” he asks. “No,” I say. “Does that ‘no’ really mean ‘yes’?” “Yes.” It turns out that I don’t need to pretend, though. The time for that must be over, and maybe I was wrong about what happened yesterday not being a big deal, because once we’ve arrived at the Grind, parked in one of the few available spaces, and stepped into the shop, we’ve barely had a chance to join the end of the line to order before Sara, the barista working the register, catches sight of us and says loudly, “Hey, Trav, your boy’s here.” “Awesome. After I finish the two mochas and the vanilla latte, I’m taking my break. And put his order down as mine, alright?” Travis says from in front of the espresso machine. He doesn’t even bother to glance up. He doesn’t correct her, or question who she might be referring to. He knows. Someone tells him that his boy is here, and he knows it’s me. Ben digs an elbow into my ribs and says, “Can you stop grinning? You look like a goddamn four-year-old.” It’s his voice that actually causes Travis to look up, hitch his chin towards us, and say to Sara, “Add a medium Earl Grey, too.” Since it doesn’t look like there’s any reason for us to wait in line, Ben and I make our way over to the order pick-up area. Apparently being the barista’s friends—his boy, I definitely don’t brag inside my head—warrants line-jumping privileges, because Ben’s tea is poured and passed over before any of the other drinks I’m sure were ordered first. The shop is busier than I’ve ever seen it before, and all of the staff look harried, but it still takes less than a minute for Travis to make my drink. He sets it down in front of me, then leans across the counter to give me a quick kiss on the lips. I don’t even have time to kiss back before he’s moving away again to pour milk into the metal frothing pitcher as he says, “Hey. You guys sticking around for a bit, or are you heading right back out?” “Sticking around,” I say, not bothering to ask for Ben’s input before answering. “Awesome,” Travis says. “Grab a table, if you can find one. We’ve been swamped all morning, and people are starting to wrap up their shopping for the day, so it’s only going to get worse. I’ll find you guys in a minute.” We don’t find a table; there are only a dozen in the shop anyway, and they’re all full, so I catch Travis’ eye and motion to the front door. It’s still freezing out, but we have coffee cups to warm our hands as we lean back against the side of the building. I light up a cigarette, even though it makes Ben start pulling faces, and say, “So, apparently that’s a thing he and I do now. You know, the kissing thing. In front of people.” “In front of me,” Ben agrees. “Was that weird?” I ask. He shrugs. “Only because I’ve been listening to you two pine for each other for a year, and it’s just now occurring to me that that was the first time I’ve ever seen you kiss.” He’s right; that is weird. We wait in companionable silence for the few minutes it takes Travis to wrap up the orders he’s working on and join us outside. Sharing in Ben’s disapproval but opting to take a more direct route, Travis plucks the mostly-gone cigarette from my hand and stubs it out on the sole of his sneaker. I glare at him, but don’t bother to light another. “Why do you always do that? You realize cigarettes cost money, right?” “I’m hoping you’ll eventually get the hint and quit,” he says, shrugging. “I’ve been smoking since I was like, fifteen years old,” I protest. Another shrug, and then he’s stepping closer to burrow into my jacket with me, slipping his arms under the leather and wrapping them around me to share in my body heat. He says, “You didn’t smoke when I first met you.” Completely untrue; the first thing I did upon moving into the new house was take the batteries out of the smoke alarm in my bedroom so that I could crack the window and smoke as much as I wanted. But the moment I realized how opposed Travis was to the practice, I quit. Am I supposed to do that again now? Are we at a point where he’s allowed to have a say in my self-destructive habits? I mean, it’s rapidly becoming clear that I underestimated what yesterday must have meant to him—he bought my coffee, he kissed me hello, he put out my cigarette without my permission, he’s sharing my coat with me instead of wearing his own. Holy fuck. Is this—are we boyfriends again? Did that kiss mean enough to him that we’re back together now, and he didn’t even bother to fucking tell me? “You know, seeing all of this—”Ben makes a sweeping gesture to the not-really-an-embrace that we’re tucked into, “—would be very confusing for me, if Garen hadn’t already told me what happened yesterday. I’m surprised you didn’t even attempt to play it cool.” Travis snorts. “Oh, sorry, I guess you guys haven’t met. Ben, this is Garen. His favorite pastime is over-sharing details of his personal life with friends, relatives, and strangers. I knew he’d tell you. And it’s not like I was planning to hide it from you, either.” I’m pretty sure he still hasn’t noticed that I’m about five seconds away from having a panic attack, or dragging him into a borderline pornographic kiss, or at the very least demanding to know if I’ve finally gotten him back. I can’t blame him—he isn’t even looking at my face. He’s slouched down just enough to tuck his head beneath my chin and rest his cheek against my collarbone. Ben, however, can see whatever baffled expression I’m undoubtedly wearing. He takes a sip from his cup of tea, and I find myself thanking god for the fact that he’s incapable of using vocal inflection to demonstrate anything other than ‘mild amusement,’ ‘mild disgust,’ or ‘mild annoyance,’ because his tone is perfectly neutral as he asks, “So, what is this, then? Are you guys getting back together?” The question is solely for my benefit; I’m not stupid enough to pretend otherwise. But barely a second passes before Travis shakes his head and says, “No.” There is no room for argument in his tone. He must be able to feel the bewildered glance I’m aiming at the top of his head, because he adds, still without looking up at me, “Last month, when you guys started dating—” “Not-dating,” Ben and I correct in unison. I don’t need to see Travis’ face to know that he’s rolling his eyes. “Whatever. Last month, when you guys started not-dating, I told you both that I didn’t think G should be dating anyone—or not-dating anyone—until he’d been sober for a year, or until he’d reached the point where he could handle all of the ups and downs of a normal relationship—” “—or abnormal, in this group,” Ben mutters. “—without falling back on the progress he’s made towards getting and staying clean.” Travis shrugs and adds simply, “My position on that issue hasn’t changed. We’re not getting back together. You need to focus on yourself right now, not on me, or anyone else.” Ben cocks his head to the side and says doubtfully, “So, you’re just friends, then.” Travis nods. I take a long sip of my coffee before asking, “Do I still get to nail you, though? Because most of my friends—” “Okay, nope, we’re done,” Ben says, shaking his head. “That’s definitely a Garen-Travis conversation, not a Garen-Travis-Ben conversation, and I am still standing right here. So, how ‘bout we change the topic and you guys can text each other about that later?” I shoot him my most lecherous grin before surrendering to a more reasonable conversation. I tap Travis’ shoulder with my fingertips and say, “You’re going to go home and sleep after this shift, right?” He shakes his head. “Nate texted me last night to tell me that he changed his mind about the diner scene. Instead of having you guys drag out chairs to surround the booth, he wants me to make the booth bigger. I’m headed over to the school once my shift ends.” “How does he expect you to make it bigger?” I demand. “Gonna saw it in half,” Travis says, yawning. “The table, the bench, all of it. Then I’m gonna add leaves to the table and a straight section to the bench so it’s all oblong instead of circular. Shouldn’t take too long. Maybe two hours for the table, three for the bench. And another three, if we’re counting the hardware store trip and the time it’ll take me to repaint after the construction.” “So, you’ve been awake for almost twenty-four hours already, and you’re not even going to get to go home for another nineteen?” Ben says in something much like disbelief. Travis shakes his head again. “I’ve only been awake for nine hours. I slept at G’s house—” “Yeah, for an hour,” I interrupt, pulling out my cell phone. “I’m going to call Nate and tell him to go fuck himself. The circular booth works fine, we’ve been running scenes with it for two weeks now. If he had a problem with it, he should have said something before last night. Telling you to build an entire new set piece on your own during the nine hours you’ve got between two eight-hour shifts is such a dick move.” Travis snatches the phone from my hand, powers it down, and slips it back into my jacket pocket. “It’s fine. I can handle it. And I’ll have a chance to sleep tonight, before the dress rehearsal tomorrow.” “At least let me meet you at the school and help you with the construction of it,” I say. I refuse to believe I’m being stubborn, but the look on Travis’ face tells me he disagrees. “Dude, I don’t know what it is with you and school, but the second you set foot in that building, you either run around like a five-year-old on a sugar high, or try to punch someone in the face,” he says. “If you come to help, you’ll distract me too much for me to get anything done.” “I am not that bad! But fine, if you’re going to be a dick about it, I don’t have to help. But I still don’t like the idea of you driving yourself all over town when you’re that tired,” I say, crossing my arms. “Can we compromise on me picking you up from the school once you’re ready to head back to the Grind for your second shift? I can give you a ride home from work and to school in the morning. You can leave your car in the school lot overnight, and this way, I don’t have to worry about you falling asleep behind the wheel and crashing into a telephone pole or something.” Travis opens his mouth to argue, but his words taper off into a yawn. When he realizes that both Ben and I are giving him extremely unimpressed looks, he rolls his eyes and concedes, “Fine. That’s stupid, and you’re acting like you think you’re my mom, but fine.” I tactfully don’t point out that his mom doesn’t care enough to talk to him, let alone to badger him into letting her give him rides home from work. He finally steps back from the circle of my arms and says, “I need to get back inside. They couldn’t get nearly enough of us to work this shift, and I don’t want to leave Sara and Mike alone at the counter for too long.” “Alright. Have fun working yourself to death,” Ben says, clapping him on the shoulder and dodging the swing Travis takes at him. He heads back to the car, but I stay behind to give a slightly more heartfelt goodbye. “Pretty sure every single one of the tools you’re going to be using to do the booth construction comes with a warning label about operating them while exhausted,” I say, reaching over to tangle my fingers with his. My heart still gives an embarrassing little jolt when he squeezes my hand instead of pulling away. “If you start to get too tired, will you please call me and let me come help you? Or will you call in sick to your next shift or something? Jerry would be totally fine with it. You’re his favorite barista. Employee of the month for August, September, and October.” He narrows his eyes, but says nothing. “Dude,” I say, grinning. “Is that your ‘Jerry made me employee of the month for November, too, but I don’t want to tell you this because you’ll make fun of me for it’ face?” “I need to get back to work,” he says through clenched teeth, and I laugh until he tries to yank his hand away from me. He looks so adorably annoyed that I can’t stop myself from pulling him in and giving him a series of short, placating kisses. Only when he is mollified enough to kiss me back do I step back and say, “I’ll see you this afternoon. Text me when you want me to pick you up from the school, alright?” “Alright,” he says. I make one more movement in the direction of Ben’s care before Travis adds, a bit too casually, “Yes, by the way.” “Yes what?” I say. He takes a step closer so that he’s back in my personal space, bracing himself with a hand low on my waist and tilting his head up ever so slightly to say, right into my ear, “You asked me earlier if you still get to nail me, even though we’re just friends. The answer is yes.” And then, with nothing more than a lingering kiss to the side of my neck and a smirk when he pulls away, he’s turning and striding back into the coffee shop. I blink after him for a solid minute before Ben starts laying on the horn. I scramble back to the passenger seat, staring wide-eyed over at Ben. He quirks an eyebrow, and we both look down at my lap, where I’m clearly half-hard in my jeans. He opens his mouth, and I raise a hand to silence him. “If you make any sort of comment about this, I swear to god, I will text Jamie right now and tell him that one round of unprotected morning sex was enough to make you fall in love with him, and now you want to adopt a hundred babies with him. And the only thing Jamie hates more than he hates babies is you, so really, McCutcheon, pick your fucking battles.” He doesn’t speak, but he sure as hell keeps smirking over at me for the entire ride back to my house.Sometime around one thirty, when I’m lounging around the house being useless, I get a text from Travis. Running behind schedule and could use some help painting. Up for it? Rather than respond with some creepy text about how I’m always up for it—and I think I deserve a lot of credit for that self-restraint—I bundle up and head to the school. The main door to the building is locked, but I manage to get in through a door that leads right into the auditorium. I follow the hum of power tools to the wings, where Travis is using a palm sander on the newly constructed tabletop and looking way too exhausted to be doing so. Sneaking up behind him while he’s operating machinery seems like a bad idea, so I loop around the front and flop down onto the stage, just in his line of sight. He glances up and switches off the sander. “Hey. Give me two minutes to finish this up, and then we’ll get started on the painting, alright?” I nod. “Do you need me to start mixing anything up now?” “Already did it. But if you could spread out the drop cloth out so we don’t get paint all over the stage, that’d be awesome. I think Ms. Markland would kick my ass if I made a mess. Or, at the very least, she’d take my auditorium key back.” “Can you please explain to me how you convinced a teacher to give you a key to the school?” I ask. “Because I’m pretty sure any teacher I tried that on would laugh until she pissed herself.” “That’s because none of our teachers are morons, so they know you’d use it to do something ridiculous like—” “—fill the auditorium with live ducks?” I suggest. “Because I totally did that once, when I was living in Ohio. Not with a key, though, I had to break in. So, all things considered, they should just give me the key, so that it’s less of a felony when I do things like that.” Travis closes his eyes for a moment, clearly trying to figure out why the hell he even bothers to talk to me, then opens them again and returns to sanding the table. I set about spreading the canvas on the floor, though I take care to make as much noise as humanly possible while I’m doing it, just so he won’t be able to pretend I’m not there. Painting the booth turns out to be an extremely dull process. There’s way less making out than I’d hoped for, and when Travis realizes that I’ve been drawing tiny animals all over my section of the booth in a shade of red just different enough for it to show, he makes me paint over it—even the giraffe I spent ten minutes on. By the time we finally finish, I’m scowling at him, but he just looks relieved to be done. We maneuver the bench to the back of the stage so that it can dry while we clean up the brushes, paint cans, and drop cloth. It’s a little after two by the time we’re done, but the paint has dried enough that we can staple the cushions down and consider our job complete. I flop down onto the bench and say, “You know, I’m beginning to realize that I have the better role in this whole production. I just wander around, singing and dancing and making people give me attention. You have to do actual work.” “I know. How’s it feel?” he asks. It takes me a moment to realize that he’s referring to the bench; I beckon him closer. The moment he’s within reach, I grab him by the wrists and tug him down onto my lap. He laughs. “Unless I missed a very big change in the blocking, this isn’t how the scene goes.” “It should be,” I say, then make a face. “Only not, actually. I can’t think of a single person in the cast who should be sitting on any other cast member’s lap. I was just trying to make a comment about how you being on top of me is awes—” “I got it, Garen,” he assures me. He slides back off me, but I barely have time to open my mouth to bitch about it before he throws a leg over me so that he can sink back down, straddling my hips and seated as comfortably as anyone can be on a bench like this. He kisses me before I get a chance to move in for it. These are the moments I have craved the most—fooling around in every sense of the phrase, making out in the middle of our abandoned high school, sneaking some time together before he has to go to work. These are the things I never got a chance to experience when we were together before; secret, pseudo-incestuous relationships aren’t exactly conducive to mid-afternoon playtime. On the only occasion in which we kissed where people could see us, people did see us, and they sent pictures of it to everyone, and he called me a faggot in a closeted panic, and we didn’t speak for nearly two weeks. But now, I’m not sure he’d even care if someone walked in on us, and that idea sets my heart pounding. Maybe this really is the start of something, even if he says we’re not together. Maybe this is my chance to have everything I had before, but more—what we had, but holding hands in the hall like we did on the first day of this school year, and kissing him in front of his locker before homeroom, and the entire goddamn staff at the Grind joining Sara in greeting me as his boy. Maybe I can finally take him on a real date. I’m breaking away from the kiss to ask him—and really, suggesting a date with someone who I used to be engaged to shouldn’t be this nerve-wracking—but before I get a chance to, he ducks down to mouth over my jaw, trailing harsh, open kisses down my neck until he reaches the fabric of my shirt. He hooks a finger over my collar and yanks it down to scrape his teeth across my collarbone, and asking him out can definitely wait. I dig my fingers into his waist and roll my crotch up to grind against his ass in one drawn-out thrust. His grip on my shirt tightens, and he mutters, “Thought you wanted to take things slow.” “I meant Garen Anderson slow, not normal people slow. It’s been what, twenty hours?” “Nineteen,” he corrects. I slip a hand up the back of his shirt and say, “That’s slow enough. Seriously, if we hit the twenty-four hour mark, I’m pretty sure I might actually die. I just—fuck, I need to touch you.” “Can I try something?” he asks quietly. I should probably ask what ‘something’ he’s referring to, but it’s difficult to think straight when I’m between his legs and he’s murmuring into my ear. When I nod, he reaches for the front of my jeans, and I can’t help but grin. Now we’re making progress. “I’m not sure that jerking me off counts as ‘trying something.’ You’ve definitely done that before—successfully, I might add. There’s no ‘try’ about it,” I say. “Trust me,” he says, slipping off my lap and onto the floor to kneel in front of me. He slides my zipper down and looks up at me. “I definitely haven’t done this before.” Any thought I’d had about asking him on a date, or taking things slow, or making another joke goes right out of my head at that point, because with typical Travis McCall determination and enthusiasm, he tugs my jeans down over my hips—there’s no way I’m going to be able to sit through the diner scene during the final dress rehearsal tomorrow without thinking about this and either laughing or touching myself—and gives my dick a considering look. He pauses and adds, in a way that might sound more composed if his voice wasn’t shaking, “I-I’ve never really done this before. I mean, there was one time, a few minutes with Ben, just as foreplay, but never like this. So, I’m open to, um… to constructive criticism. I won’t be offended.” “Constructive criticism?” I echo in disbelief. “Dude, it’s a blowjob, not a term paper. You—” Any capacity for casual conversation escapes me after that, because now it’s taking all of my energy to not knot my hands in Travis’ hair and thrust up into the wet heat of his mouth. I settle for letting loose with a stream of swears so extensive and creative that he only manages to keep my dick in his mouth for about fifteen seconds before he pulls off, laughing. There is a small possibility that my humiliating response is to whimper like a fucking animal and say, “No, no, no, please don’t stop.” “You’re distracting me!” he protests, resting his forehead against my thigh in what I’m sure is an attempt to hide the fact that he’s still laughing. It doesn’t work. “I mean, seriously, you’re pretty much composing an anthem of dirty talk right above my head—” “And this somehow surprises you? You know this about me, you know I’m a talker in the bedroom—the metaphorical bedroom, obviously, this isn’t a bedroom, I know that. This is a stage, and really, this is like all my exhibitionist fantasies coming to life at once, and all of my regular fantasies, too, because holy fuck, I’ve kind of been waiting to find out what your mouth feels like since the first second I set eyes on you, and if you stop now, I think I might literally die, so—” I give up trying to speak the moment he starts sucking me again. Just to be safe, I also make a concerted effort to keep my jaw clenched on another embarrassing stream of curses, settling instead for heavy breathing and the occasional encouraging gasp. The movement of his mouth is hesitant at first; I can tell he’s experimenting, trying to gauge what he should be doing based on what pulls the best reactions from me. For a guy who’s never really gone to town on another dude with his mouth before, he is making an admirable amount of progress. I hear the scratch of a zipper, and my eyes fly open again—I didn’t even know they were closed—so that I can watch as Travis yanks open his jeans and gets his dick out so that he can stroke himself with the hand that’s not busy working the half of me he can’t fit into his mouth. I’m bizarrely touched to realize that he’s jerking himself roughly, clumsily, because he’s using his right hand on himself and saving his dominant hand for me. I shake my head even though he’s not looking at me, grab him by the wrist, and shove his left hand downward. He does look up at me then, just to shoot me a questioning glance, and I have to lick my lips before I can force out the words, “I want to see how you really do it.” When he still doesn’t move, I hitch my chin and say, more sharply, “Show me.” He pulls his mouth off me long enough to give me a few last strokes before he obeys—not because he thinks it makes that much of a difference, I realize, but because he wants his hand to be slick with spit before he drops it to his own lap. I don’t bother trying to hold back the groan that tears out of me at that. The sound pulls a shiver from him, but I barely notice that; I’m too focused on watching the practiced movement of his fist curling around the head of his cock. I want to slide a hand into his hair, maybe give it a little tug—it seems like that would be the more reasonable thing to do, but instead, both of my hands end up threaded in my own hair, fingertips digging into my scalp as I stare down at him. This is all I’d dreamed it would be. It doesn’t even matter that he’s new at this, that he’s lacking in experience or technique. I’ve been fantasizing about this since the moment we met, and now that it’s finally happening, it’s better than I could have hoped for. It’s too good. “T-Travis, stop,” I say, and he’s off me in less than a second, sitting back on his heels and looking anxiously up at me, his hand stuttering to a halt in his lap. It takes me a moment to realize that he thinks this is a no-means-no sort of deal, that I’m calling him off because I’m having another attack of whatever it is that makes me freak out whenever someone gets too controlling with my body. But even the few seconds lacking in contact are driving me crazy—I wrap a hand tight around myself and let my head fall back against the booth. “Sorry, just—’m really, really close.” He snorts. “Isn’t that the point?” I shake my head. “Wanted to give you enough warning so you could pull off. Didn’t want to make you feel like you had to, you know, swallow—I know this is the f-first time you’ve really—” I have to bite off the rest of that sentence, because if I think about him not having gotten to this point before, if I think about being the first guy who ever gets off from the feel of his mouth, I’m going to lose it. He tugs my hand away from my dick and replaces my grip with his own, leaning in to give a lingering lick to the head of my cock, and oh, I’m practically dying. He murmurs, “Well, you’re sure as hell not getting your spunk on the bench I spent all morning making. Besides—” Another lick, Christ, “—I want to taste you.” “Oh, fuck,” is the only warning I manage to give, and he barely has a chance to slide his mouth back down onto me before I’m coming, digging my fingers into the bench seat hard enough to nearly tear at the material. I’m really banking on the hope that we’re alone in the building, because we could probably both be expelled for doing this, and I’m not even trying to silence the sounds I’m making. He lets me ride out the sensation—would probably keep me in his mouth as long as I wanted, asked, needed him to—but then I pull out, catch his jaw in my hand and say, “Don’t swallow.” He shoots me a vaguely pissed-off look that says, quite clearly, if you didn’t want me to swallow, maybe you shouldn’t have just nutted in my mouth, you fucking idiot, and if this isn’t going down my throat, you’d better have some sort of alternate plan here. But his expression makes the jump from pissed to confused to unbearably turned on when I all but fall off the edge of the bench and kiss him deeply, fiercely, doing my best to lick the taste of myself from his mouth. It’s a frantic, sloppy kiss, and I’m pretty sure there might be cum dripping down my bottom lip right now—a more squeamish man might be horrified by me doing this with him, but there’s nothing squeamish about Travis. After all, he likes me, doesn’t he, even with all my kink and filth and flaws? Sure enough, his breath hitches at the kiss, then again a moment later when I yank his jeans and boxers halfway to his knees. He lets me drag him onto my lap so that he’s straddling my hips, sitting back on my thighs. His voice is deeper than normal, a little raspier, oh Christ, when he asks, “Was that okay? Was I, um—” He breaks off, looking up at me, nervous and young and gorgeous. “So much better than okay,” I assure him, taking up the task of stroking him off. “So fucking good, T.” “Oh god,” he mutters, twisting to bury his face against my neck. “P-Please keep in mind that I was jacking off that whole time, so you’re not allowed to judge me for the fact that I’m going to come in like, a minute, tops.” I tighten my grip a little, and he twitches against my palm. If it were humanly possible for me to get hard again, I probably would. “Do you want this? Or do you want my mouth? Tell me, I’ll give you anything you want, I—” “This,” he breathes, rocking up into my hand. Every forward push ends with his ass grinding back against me, too much stimulation too soon after I’ve come. It’s almost painful, but the movement makes it nearly impossible for me to think about anything other than him riding me, and yes, my dick is still desperately trying to get hard again. “Want to see you, want to kiss you when I come.” And a few minutes later, that’s exactly what he does. One of his arms is wound tight around my neck, his other hand knotted in my hair as he kisses me and shudders out his orgasm… all over the front of my shirt. I can’t even bring myself to care about that, not when he’s falling apart on top of me, not when everything I’ve ever wanted is right here in my hands. Once he has made some progress towards coherency, he has the presence of mind to shift off of me so that we can both pull our jeans back into place. Zipped, buttoned, and settled, he slumps back against the base of the bench at my side, curling up under my arm. “This,” he says, still a little breathlessly, “is exactly why I said you were going to be a distraction if you came to help.” “Really? This is the exact reason? When we were standing outside the Grind at four in the morning and I offered to help you construct scenery for our school play, you were picturing blowing me on the stage and then letting me jerk you off all over my t-shirt?” He leans away to peer at my face. “Pretty much? I mean, in all fairness, I spend a lot of time picturing blowing you on this stage. It makes for some incredibly awkward rehearsals.” “You’re unreal,” I mutter, pulling him in for another kiss. He accepts it with a smile, but too soon, he’s clambering up on shaky legs and saying, “I’m officially about to be late to work. We need to go.”One orgasm is apparently only enough to sustain Travis’ consciousness for a few hours; he’s fine when I drop him off at the Daily Grind—flushed and a little paranoid that he smells like sex, but fine. Awake. Alert. The opposite is true when I pull into the lot as he’s wrapping up his closing duties later that night. I’m not allowed to go inside once the glowing “open” sign gets flipped off at eleven, so I wait in my car and watch him through the window. He’s supposed to be sweeping the floors, but he’s stumbling on almost every step, like he’s nodding off between swipes of the broom. At this point, I’m pretty sure he’s been awake for around forty hours, not including that bullshit nap at my house. Even the other baristas seem to be snapping at him to just go home already, but he just resolutely shakes his head every time one of them speaks to him. My fingers are clenched into fists around my steering wheel. They shouldn’t have scheduled him for two shifts in one day. Failing that, Nate shouldn’t have been a tool about the booth. Failing that, I shouldn’t have screwed around with him at the school, when I could have been doing all the painting so he could get a couple hours’ rest. And failing all of that, he should’ve been smart enough to tell one of us—or all of us—to fuck off and let him be human. When the baristas’ coats have been gathered, the lights have been flicked off, and the door has been opened to let everyone out, I’m out of the car in a second. “McCall, get your idiot ass in this car right now. You look like you’re about to fall over, and it’s freaking me out.” “’Kay,” is all he says, his eyes barely focusing on me as he shuffles towards the Ferrari. I’m not sure he even realizes it’s me; this is a total Stranger Danger moment. “About time somebody got him to listen,” one of the baristas grumbles. “He burned himself on the espresso machine twice because he could barely keep his eyes open. We’ve been telling him to call someone for a ride home and clock out early since six o’clock.” Travis scowls and mumbles something that I think is supposed to be, “Was scheduled to work three to eleven, so I fuckin’ worked three to eleven. Mind your own business, Jesus Christ, guys.” He tumbles unceremoniously into the passenger seat of my car, shuts the door, and gets halfway through the act of buckling his seatbelt before he falls asleep, head bumping up against the window. It would be cute, if it wasn’t so scary. I snatch a cell phone away from one of the workers I recognized and punch my number into his contacts list. “If this kind of things ever happens again, and one of you doesn’t call me to pick him up, I will literally burn this building to the ground with all of you inside it. He’s a goddamn moron when it comes to things like this, and I don’t want him to pass out and drown in a coffee puddle out of some sense of duty to Jerry. Fucking Jerry, scheduling the guy to work these shifts, what the hell. I’m putting my number in here, but you can write it down on the board in the back or something. I’m his—” “Dude, you’re in here two or three times a day, every day. Pretty sure we all know you,” the guy responds dryly. Then you should have called me, it takes all my energy not to say. Instead, I let out a low noise of annoyance, just so they’re all clear about the fact that they’ve been shitlisted for the time being. I wrench my door open and glare in at Travis’ sleeping form so that he knows he’s in trouble, to. He doesn’t seem to care. I say, “Alright, I’m going to go drop him off. Goodnight.” I toss off one last glance at them, just in time to see one of the younger baristas looking baffled as she mouths, drop him off? at her coworker. The other girl shakes her head and whispers, “Not yet. They’re still in school.” It’s a weird exchange, one I don’t begin to understand. It isn’t until I’m back in the car and pulling out onto the main drag that I realize that the “not yet” was in response to the unasked question of, “Aren’t they living together?” Jesus. His coworkers already have us practically married, and we’re not even dating. That shouldn’t send a spark of amusement, or glee, or longing through me, but of course, it does. Travis rouses himself from sleep just as I’m approaching the turn for his house. He blinks around, covers my hand with his on the gearshift, and says, “Can we go to your house instead?” I very pointedly do not look at him. “You wanna spend the night at my place?” He nods. I swallow. “Okay. That’s—sure. We can do that.” He’s asleep again before I round the corner, and so he remains until we’ve pulled into my driveway. I contemplate carrying him inside so I don’t have to wake him, but he gets out of the car and glares at me, like he can read my mind and is pissed at me for coddling him. He lets me steer him to the front door with a hand to the small of his back, then makes his way carefully down the stairs to my bedroom. I get him out of his jacket and strip his t-shirt off, and the second he’s free of the material, he leans in to kiss me. Laughing, I push him backward—he flops easily onto the bed, and I reach for the button of his jeans. “As much as I love your determination to turn this into an act of sexual congress, I’m really just trying to get you out of your clothes so you can sleep. Besides, I’m pretty sure that having you fall asleep while I’m sucking your dick would destroy my ego entirely.” “Wouldn’t fall asleep,” he mumbles. I wonder if even he thinks he’s being convincing right now. Once I’ve freed him of his jeans and wrangled him into a t-shirt and a pair of sweats, he lets me manhandle him under the blankets. He stays conscious just long enough to watch me strip off my own jeans; the second I’ve crawled into bed, he curls up against my side and promptly passes right the fuck out with his head on my chest. It’s so adorable that I almost want to wake him up just so I can watch him do it again. Instead, I maneuver him into a slightly more comfortable position and start to nod off as well. My insomnia is still wrecking me these days, so the fact that I’m able to get to sleep at all is surprising in itself. What’s more surprising, though, are the dreams. Vivid, embarrassing, technicolor dreams, all starring Travis. Not sexy ones—I wouldn’t even bat an eye over waking up to find myself humping his leg like a dog, especially considering that’s kind of already happened once this month. No, these dreams are stupid and pedestrian and perfect in their simplicity—I find myself slipping in and out of a world where Travis’ coworker is right, and he and I are living together, going to bed like this every night, waking up like this every morning. I dream about us in the supermarket. I dream about us playing in the park with a dog we don’t really have. I dream about kids, holy fuck, what is wrong with me? When I surface from that dream—equal parts fantasy and nightmare—at nearly six in the morning, I frown up at the ceiling, determined not to fall back asleep. I don’t need to deal with this shit, not right now; the quickest way for me to ensure that whatever I’m tentatively starting with Travis comes crashing down around us is to try to rush it when he has just explicitly stated that he’s not interested in dating me now. He must be learning to run on less sleep than a normal person requires, because sometime around six thirty—an hour and a half before the alarm is set to go off—he blinks back to consciousness. His eyes find mine, and the edge of my mouth twitches up into a smile. I lean in to give him a good morning kiss, but he shrug away and burrows into my neck, voice muffled as he says, “Not gonna make out with you until you let me brush my teeth.” “What, seriously?” I say, rolling my eyes. “I’ve been waiting almost a year to make out with you, and you’re going to ruin the moment by worrying about whether or not you have morning breath?” “Yes. And you haven’t been waiting ‘almost a year,’ you liar. At this point, you haven’t even been waiting ‘almost a day.’ Come on. You, too.” I scowl at him for the walk to the bathroom, thrust a spare, unopened toothbrush into his hands, and glare as intensely as possible for the entire time I’m brushing. He ignores me completely, smiles blandly once he’s finished, and darts back to my room while I’m still putting the toothpaste back in the drawer. After that, I kind of have to forgive him, because I make it approximately four steps into my room again before he’s on me, dragging me into a kiss and steering me towards my bed. “It’s cold and still too early to be up, but I’m awake now, and clearly so are you. Want to curl up in bed and make out for a few hours, until it’s time to get ready for the dress rehearsal?” Actually saying the words I don’t care, I just want to hold you might cause me to suddenly grow a vagina, so I settle for the only-slightly-less-true, “Can’t think of much else I’d rather do.” He burrows under the blankets and drags me in with him, tangling our limbs together so thoroughly that I can barely tell whose skin is whose. He’s right about it being cold—the heating in the house has a tendency to kick off during the night, and it’s before-sunrise on a late November morning, so it’s probably thirty degrees out right now. None of that feels true in my bed. The blankets block out any of the cool air, and his hands are warm against my skin. It’s not long before I’m growing hard against his thigh. It’s the sort of thing he could ignore, if he were so inclined, but he opts to push my t-shirt up under my arms and say, “You’re wearing too much clothing. You’re always wearing too much clothing, why do you even own clothes?” “Public nudity is generally frowned upon,” I say, grinning into his mouth. “Not in public right now,” he says, pulling at the shirt again. “Off, please.” We both shiver when I shrug out from under the blankets to strip off my t-shirt, and Travis must think that one burst of cold air is enough, because he wriggles out of his borrowed shirt and sweats, then yanks the covers back over both of us. When our bodies come together again, he must be able to feel the pounding of my heart, but he says nothing. I’ve got no idea how far this is going—if I were with any other guy right now, I’d be diving for a condom to get this show underway as quickly as possible. With Travis, though, I’m still sort of convinced that this isn’t really happening. Or that I’m going to have another freakout and not be able to keep it up. Or that he’s going to change his mind before we get anywhere. Or that someone’s going to come in-- Oh. Oh, hell no. If I fuck this up, I’m going to fuck it up on my own merit, not because someone barges in without knocking. The odds of my dad waltzing into my bedroom before sun-up on a Saturday are almost non-existent, but I’m not taking my chances. I launch myself off the bed and in the general direction of the door. Travis makes a half-questioning, half-protesting noise, which dissolves into a snort when I click the lock into place and say, “Sorry, I just—wanted to make sure. Do you mind if I—” I gesture towards my computer, and really, what is wrong with me? What if he thinks that’s a can I just check my email real quick gesture, rather than the can I turn on some music, because that’s honestly the only thing that could make this moment hotter for me gesture I intended it as? But Travis just grins and says, “Go right ahead. Kind of surprised you managed to get it up without something playing anyway. I know how you feel about silence.” I stick my tongue out at him but turn to the computer to cue up something on iTunes. It takes me longer than it should to pick a song. I’ve been preparing for this moment for months in a way that only a true music dork can appreciate: by making an epic “Garen Anderson and Travis McCall Sex Reunion Playlist.” Seriously, I’ve got this thing on my computer, my iPod, my phone, an entire book of CDs in my car. The problem is that I’ve been working on that playlist since last January, which means it kind of has three hundred and fifty-four songs on it, and they’re not in any sort of order. I have no idea what song to start with. “Getting a little bored back here, dude,” Travis says. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I say, in a voice that is certainly not at all panicked. “I didn’t—I should have put it in order, but I didn’t, because I thought I’d have a bit more warning before this happened again--if this happened again, I-I wasn’t really sure.” I hear a drawer open behind me, some rummaging around, then the click of the drawer sliding shut again. Jesus motherfucking Christ, this shouldn’t be this difficult. It’s just a song, right? I can start with anything. I can start with—Coldplay, Coldplay totally works, tons of people fuck to Coldplay. Except, yeah, tons of people fuck to Coldplay. It’s not special enough for this, and neither is Snow Patrol, or John Mayer, or why the fuck do I even have Sarah McLachlan on my computer, let alone on this playlist? I must’ve put that one on in May or June, when I was bombed out of my mind half the time. There’s no other excuse, really. I should be ashamed of myself; everyone was right when they told me that my addiction was a monster that would one day destroy everything I love.

Travis sneaks a hand past me—I hadn’t realized he had gotten off the bed—to steal the mouse and start up a random song on the playlist. I turn to glare at him, but he frames my face between his palms—and alright, there’s a condom pinned between his fingers, and he took off his boxers at some point, so his intent is pretty clear—and says, “It’s fine, G. Just come to bed.”

I swallow. “Are you sure you want this?” He answers me with a kiss. I allow myself to be stripped of what little clothing remains and drawn onto the bed with him. He makes one attempt to pass me the bottle of lube he has retrieved from my nightstand, but I shake my head, curl up against his side, and say, “Wanna see you do it.” “What is with you and wanting to watch me touch myself today?” he asks, though the words come out a little more breathless than I think he intends. “I think a more reasonable question might be, ‘what is with me wanting to watch you touch yourself every day?’ This is definitely not a new development, I just haven’t gotten a chance to act on it prior to now.” I nudge his jaw with my nose and splay a hand out low on his stomach. “Besides… a few weeks ago, you told me that you need this sometimes. That you do it to yourself, and you think about it being me who’s doing it, and I want to see.” He shoots me a look that suggests he’d rather I just was the one doing it, rather than letting him pretend, but I don’t have to argue my point any further; he turns to face away from me so that we’re both on our sides, his back to my chest and my arm draped across his waist. My dick is nudging up against his ass, which is holy fuck a bad idea, because it’s been too long since I’ve felt him like this, and it’s already taking an uncomfortable amount of effort to stop myself from just pushing up against his skin until I come. He flicks open the bottle of lube and slicks up a few of his fingers. I’m awarded a small amount of distance between his skin and mine, but that’s just so that he can reach behind himself and slowly, carefully press a finger into himself. I’m not sure if that distance outweighs the sight of his finger slowly disappearing into his body; I’m not sure whether I’m more or less in control of myself than I was a few minutes ago. Either way, I let out a breath of a laugh against the back of his neck. He shoots a flushed glare over his shoulder and goes still. “Really, Garen? You tell me to finger myself, I start to do it, and you fucking giggle at me? Is this supposed to be turning me on, or—” “I think I’m losing my mind,” I say faintly. “You’re too hot. I think I’m—fuck, babe, you’re driving me crazy. Please keep going.” When he continues to look uncertain, I trail a hand down his spine, lower, lower, until I can curl it around his and brush my fingertips across where his disappear into his opening. His breath hitches, and I take that as a sign to continue; I tug his hand away, then push forward once more, guiding his movements and slowly fucking him with his own fingers. He twists to kiss me and mumbles against my lips, “For god’s sake, G, I can do this to myself anytime. It’s all I’ve been doing for months now. I don’t want my fingers, I want yours—” Anything else he’d been planning to say breaks off into a moan when I pull his hand out of the way and sink two shaking fingers into him. I take my time working him open, first with two fingers, then with three, and always with plenty of lube, partly because I want to, but partly because I know I need to. He hasn’t done this in ten months, and as much as I want to be buried inside him rightthefucknow, I won’t risk hurting him. I can’t. “Can you, um—” He cuts himself off with a deep breath, then says softly, “Another? I know this is taking forever, and I’m really sorry, it’s just—you’ve got a thick cock, and it’s been so long since I’ve bottomed, and—” “Travis,” I murmur, covering his freckled shoulder in soft kisses. “It’s okay. We’ll take as much time as we need, alright? Just relax.” I don’t know how much longer I spend just prepping him. Long enough that I have to keep pausing to pull his hand away from my dick, because seriously, the last fucking thing I need is for him to make me come before I even get to fuck him. It doesn’t take me long to find the perfect angle on his prostate, and by the time I stop to roll on a condom, he’s shaking, panting, reaching back to dig his fingertips into my thigh. “Please,” is all he says. “Okay. I’m just going to—yeah,” is what comes out of my mouth in reply. I swear I used to have more game than this. For fuck’s sake, I still have more game than this, but that only seems to apply when I’m with anyone else. With Travis, when it matters, I turn into a total fucking spazz, trembling almost too much to line the head of my cock up with his ass and push inside. And there’s that humiliating stream of curses again. I manage to downplay it to a whisper against the back of his neck, but it still makes him laugh, breathless and somewhat strangled. I slip my arms around his waist, crossing my forearms over his chest and curving my hands over his shoulders for leverage as I rock forward into him. He reaches up to wind his fingers around mine, squeezing tight and arching back to kiss me. It’s the most intensely perfect combination of physical sensations I’ve ever experienced. I must make some sort of noise to that effect, because then Travis is smiling, nipping at my bottom lip with his teeth, saying, “Good?”This is the best morning of my life, I think. This is everything I’ve ever wanted, and this is perfect, and you are perfect, and all I want for the rest of my life is to have this, over and over, always. “Good,” I echo instead. I release one of his hands and reach for his dick, but he gives a quick jerk of his hips, as if trying to move away, and shakes his head frantically, saying, “Don’t, don’t, don’t. Seriously, if you touch my cock, I’m going to come, I don’t want to come yet. Just w-wait a second. Don’t move.”

“Fuck,” I groan, moving my arm back up to his waist. Not moving is absolute torture, but I want to do what he says, so I stay as still as humanly possible. He twists against me, and then I can only see darkness as my eyes briefly roll back in my head. My arms are locked tight around him, and I’m saying, “Travis, please, can I—let me—” He nods, and I shift back a little so that I can grip his hips—maybe hard enough to bruise, fuck, I want my fingerprints to be dug into his skin for days—and really fuck him. There’s no way I’m going to be able to last as long as he wants me to, not when I’ve been waiting so long to do this, not when I’ve never had sex this good in my entire life. I press one of my palms against his flat stomach so that I can feel his abs contracting under my hand as he tightens around me, and god, that’s amazing. “Stop,” he says sharply, and I freeze in mid-movement, even though I’m pretty much balls-deep and the head of my dick is pressed against his prostate. He loses all focus for a few seconds, shudders, presses back against me. I pull out a few inches, just to see if that will draw his attention back to his desire to speak. It does. He slips a hand back between us and presses against my stomach, pushing me back until I slip out of him. I barely have time to panic at the idea of him changing his mind and wanting to stop now, because then he’s rolling us over so that I’m flat against the mattress and he’s straddling my hips. He reaches down and adjusts my dick so that he can sink back onto me, and now he’s bracing his palms against my chest, fucking himself down onto my dick. His eyes are closed, his mouth open, but it’s not enough. It will never be enough. Even still inside him, I’m not as close as I want to be. I sit up and shift him around a bit so that his legs are wrapped around my waist and he’s sitting in my lap. I wrap my arms tight around his waist, and he’s leaning back over my forearms, back arched and one hand thrown out onto the bed behind him to steady himself as he rides me. I curve back inward to press my forehead against his chest. We rock together like that for ages, but his dick is so hard, pinned between our stomachs, and it’s completely distracting me, tempting me. I grip his thighs and pull him off of me. He protests, but I ignore him, flatten him out on the bed and shift onto my hands and knees to take him in my mouth. He tastes so fucking good, warm and salty and even better than I remember, and I want to go slow, make this last. I slip off and flatten my tongue against the underside of his dick, carefully tracing it from base to tip, then covering him with my mouth and sliding back down again until his head touches the back of my throat. “Enough, Garen, enough with the head,” he says, tugging on my hair. “It’s great, okay? You’re so, so good at it, but I need you to fuck me.” I pull off with a pop and say, “When the hell did you become such a power bottom?” “Shut up, come here, and put your cock back in me,” he orders, hauling me back up on top of him. I can’t, not yet, not while he’s looking at me with fire in his eyes, because I’m pretty sure that if I do what he says, I’m going to come. I’m actually squeezing the base of my dick to stop myself from coming as it is. “Ask me nicely,” I say, burying my face against the side of his neck. “Oh, for god’s sake—will you please fuck me? Please?” I hook his legs over my shoulders and twist to drop a kiss against the side of his knee as I press back into him. He throws his head back and lets out a groan so perfect I think I’m starting to believe in God again. I bite gently down on the skin of his calf and, even though I know this isn’t really the time for conversation, I murmur, “You’re so gorgeous, Travis.” “Kiss me again,” he says, hands tight in my hair. I let him pull me back down so that our mouths crash together. His legs are still crooked over my shoulders, so he’s practically folded in half now, his knees almost level with his own shoulders. Boy’s more flexible than he looks. I stop kissing him just long enough to spit onto my palm so that my hand is slick when I reach back down and to stroke him off. My rhythm is a little off now, because I’m so fucking close to finishing, and it’s impossible to keep kissing, so I rest my forehead against the pillow next to his head. When he speaks, his lips brush across my ear and his voice is barely more than a breath, like if he says it quietly enough, it can be a secret that no one will ever have to know, and it won’t even count. I feel his tongue flick lightly against my earlobe, and then I hear him whisper, “Love you, G.” I come hard, buried deep inside him, with a choked-off, gasping groan. My orgasm is tearing through my entire body like a fucking hurricane, and I must be hurting him a little, with how tightly I’m gripping his hips, his dick, but all I can do is shudder as I roll my hips slowly and jerkily up into him. I try to avoid pulling out for as long as I can, until my dick is way too sensitive for this much stimulation, then strip off the condom, toss it into the garbage can under the desk. Travis is still so hard, breathing heavy and eyes dark. I settle myself between his still-spread legs, swallow him down to the root, and sink two fingers deep into him. He writhes senselessly, one hand still tangled in my hair, the other flying up to grip the headboard. One of his legs is still thrown over my shoulder, and the back of his calf weighs heavy on my shoulderblades, but I can barely feel it now. I’m still riding out the aftershocks of orgasm, and all I care about is the taste of him on my tongue and the sounds he’s making as I continue to fuck him with my fingers. I sneak the tip of a third in, and then he’s dropping his other hand back to my hair and pulling hard as he says, “Gonna come. Fuck, I’m going to come.” Oh, please do. I pull off just enough to give one last particularly elaborate swirl of my tongue over the head of his dick, then sink back down over him as he shudders out a climax. I’ve barely had time to swallow before he drags me up into a kiss, tasting himself in my mouth like I did to him on the stage yesterday. For a very long moment, we lie there, curled around each other, kissing and shaking, and then he releases me enough that I can slide back down to settle my head against his stomach. He cards his fingers through my hair, pushing it back from my face, and the soft drag of his fingertips across my scalp almost makes me keen. I press a kiss to his stomach and say, “Do you want me to—”

“I want you to wait, like… five minutes. And then I want to do that again,” Travis says, his voice slightly muffled by the arm thrown over his face. I can’t help it, I laugh. He raises his head slightly to give me an appraising look. “I don’t know why you would think I’m joking. We’re eighteen years old, it’s completely possible. Sex marathons are what eighteen-year-old gay guys are built for.”

“I might need more than five minutes,” I admit, tracing designs into his skin with the tip of my finger. I can’t remember the last time I had an orgasm that intense. I can’t remember the last time anything—sex, drugs, booze—made me feel this good. Both of us are sticky with sweat and cum, but I can’t let go of him yet. I scramble higher up onto the bed and curl an arm over his shoulders to pull him closer. Exhausted and complacent, he sprawls out, half next to me, half on top of me, his head resting on my chest, right above my heart, and one arm draped across my middle. It all feels so right. Until the alarm goes off. I groan and pull the blankets up over our heads. “Oh, god. Can I call in sick to rehearsal?” “You’re not sick,” he protests, shoving the covers back down. “Being totally fucked out and not giving a shit about extracurricular activities is like a sickness,” I try. “That’s what the guidance counselor, and my therapist, and my parents keep telling me. Do you think Ms. Markland will agree?” Travis shakes his head. “Doubt it. Come on, we’ve got to get up.” “No, I have a better idea. We’re going to hit the snooze button. Twice. That gives us ten minutes to recover,” I decide. “And then we’re going to go shower, because between my amazing upper body strength and your amazing lower body strength, I’m pretty sure we can manage to get you pinned up against the tile with your legs around my waist for some fantastic shower sex.” I tug a lock of his hair. “I am not missing out on round two because of some stupid dress rehearsal, alright? I have my priorities, and you come first. Well—” “Don’t you dare make a ‘come’ pun right now,” he warns, and I fall silent. We make it exactly seven and a half minutes before he raises his head, gives me a look that just might kill me, and says, “So… round two?” We race to the shower.